Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ida State. Teams like that come up, you can't allow for the mental errors and sloppiness. "We understand that. We're going to enjoy this victory for 24 hours, and then it's on to Stanford and we've got to get better." Notre Dame junior defensive line- man and team captain Sheldon Day … On the level the Irish played at against the Orange: "We know what the level of greatness looks like, and we're just trying to achieve that. If we play like this, we know this is not at our highest level of expectations. "We know we didn't play to our highest ability." Notre Dame sophomore receiver Will Fuller … On what he has improved on most since last year: "Just getting the op- portunity to play. I'm taking advantage of it." Syracuse head coach Scott Shafer … On what differentiated Notre Dame: "I really liked our plan, and five turnovers forced was pretty good. We were plus-four and came up short. We have to finish on offense. Hats off to Notre Dame's defense, that's why they're one of the best defenses in the country. "It was a great out-of-conference matchup, and a very good football team beat us today." On the referee blowing the play dead after Everett Golson's spike/ fumble: "I don't know whether it was a good call or a bad call, but we're not going to lose any sleep over it. I know the fans are upset, saying it was defi- nitely a fumble. I know those officials tried their butts off, but the luck of the Irish went their way again. That's how it goes sometimes." On Notre Dame defensive coor- dinator Brian VanGorder and his defensive game plan: "Notre Dame has a great football coach — I've al- ways liked that guy. He's a damn good football coach. He does a great job of changing the fronts up, bringing pres- sure one way, bringing it another, get- ting in and out of things. "They played enough man to keep us honest and enough zone to throw us off. They just kept us off-balance, and we didn't do a good enough job maintaining and sustaining our blocks up front sometimes, and they got off of their blocks sometimes." On Notre Dame compared to Syr- acuse's other opponents: "They're pretty talented, but if I had to put money on someone from our confer- ence I would. Florida State is freakish." Syracuse junior safety Durell Es- kridge … On Golson's completion streak: "As a defensive backfield we have to do better. We can't come in and let a quar- terback complete 25 straight passes. "That just makes us look bad, and makes him look even better than he already is."